Aquartet of high-profile crashes
in the first free practice – Stoner,
Pedrosa, Rossi and Elias all flying
off on the fast left-hander before the
steep downhill back straight – put
a slightly different focus on the tyre
complaints that have become a chorus
over the past five or six races.
The Bridgestone problems of crashes
blamed on poor warm-up performance
have all so far involved losing the back
end, usually off-throttle on corner entry.
At the Sachsenring crashes were caused
by riders losing the front.
Bridgestone had brought the very
softest rubber from their cabinet of
compounds for the asymmetric rear.
Result? It pushed the front, and in cold
Friday morning conditions it gave way. It’s
all a matter of balance.
The company has acted to try to solve
the problems (see separate News story). At
the same time, a new question emerged
. . . should there also be mixed-compound
(asymmetric) front tyres as well as rear?
Opinions among riders were mixed but
generally leaned away from them. Rossi
for instance said they might be good
for this track and Phillip Island, both of
which have a heavy left-hand bias with
their anticlockwise direction and design.
But he agreed also with Stoner, who was
concerned that asymmetry might make
braking performance distinctly dodgy.
In fact, they have been tried – by both
Bridgestone and Michelin when they were
head to head, and by Dunlop when they
were trying to catch up, “about ten years
ago,” according to former chief Jeremy
Ferguson.
But they were very seldom race, if ever.
As both Ferguson and a Bridgestone
staffer agreed, confidence and trust in the
front tyre is everything. Riders tended to
choose one tyre, and use it all year, said
Ferguson. Any variation in grip, especially
from one side to the other, is extremely
difficult to adjust to.
The answer? Tyres and their behaviour is
a much more complicated subject than a
layman can easily understand.
Trusting the front
MOTOGP GERMANY
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